SPOILERS FOR TECHROT ENCORE AHEAD, CONCERNING ON-LYNE
DE with On-Lyne could have very easily gone the stereotypical route of "beloved boyband that advertises brotherhood but secretly all hate each other's guts" but on brand with their overarching themes of love and family went in the complete opposite direction. Like the Coda are clones, but they parrot the boys' real thoughts and feelings. And despite the imperfection of that cloning their fierce bond of brotherhood endures.
For one, all of them are so so protective of Packet and it makes me want to cry. This bit from Harddrive especially just has me dreading how horrible the media was to all of them but him especially as he is the youngest.
Packet also has a line during his final confrontation talking about the panic attacks he suffers, which I can only assume is a result of constantly being scrutinized by media outlets and their label. (edit: ITS DJ-ROM THAT SAYS THIS NOT DRILLBIT) has a line during his final confrontation which I think is related to that where he's clearly in the context of an interview and is defensive about questions regarding their personal lives, and even volunteers to answer any of those questions in the others' place.
And while they are all especially protective of Packet, they look out for each other just as much. Packet himself has lines talking about how happy he is that Harddrive punched someone out for making fun of him and another expressing just how worried he is about Zeke and the amount of pressure he is under as the band's leader.
Drillbit similarly talks about how much respect he has not just for Zeke but for DJ-Rom and how much hard work he puts into keeping things running well with the band - how while Zeke is the charismatic public face of the band - Rom, while quiet, is the true brains behind them maneuvering their predatory label's demands.
And then DJ-Rom himself talks about his own bitterness about record labels and how exploitative they are of young talent. He also mentions his familiarity with the industry, and how he uses that knowledge to keep the boys safe from predatory behavior within their label.
Which in hindsight adds more terrible context to why their manager decided to turn to the Technocyte Coda (aka Generative AI) to fully clone the band so they could keep making music with their likeness but stop paying them. DJ-Rom was clearly such a persistent and stubborn thorn in their side in regards to blocking their attempts at shorting the boys what they were owed that their manager resorted to cutting the human element out entirely.
Rom also during my confrontation with him confesses to the fact that he knows how annoying and shallow people view pop music and them by extension, but how it's shallow in itself to see pop music as not "real music/art" and that what he and the boys do has just as much value for all the work they put into it. Which is frankly a message that a lot of us should take to heart, (myself included frankly).
As always DE has delivered on the lore and now that I've converted one of each of the boys I can't wait to resume my farming of them to hear more of it.
